One of the top mobile service operators in the U.K. – T-Mobile – has just announced a strategic partnership deal with Internet giant Yahoo! Inc. that will place ads on to their “Web n’ Walk” mobile Internet service. The first ads to be born out of this new agreement are expected to appear sometime before Q3 2008.
This latest announcement with T-Mobile indicates yet again that Yahoo’s big push this year is on the mobile side of things, and could be just be their saving grace. Further indications of this were found in the company’s announcements at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this month in Las Vegas, where Yahoo unveiled a series of updates to their various mobile services.
Yahoo has also said that they will offer online services that work on existing phones, rather than creating their own software. Through this method, and strategic partnerships with mobile providers, Yahoo believes that they can reach millions of phone users.
Yahoo has already made similar agreements with two other major mobile operators in recent months – Telefonica in October ’07, and American Movil in December ’07. They also have a similar advertising deal in place with Vodafone. Having this latest agreement with T-Mobile now under their belt, Yahoo now reaches consumers on two of the U.K.’s top four mobile providers.
Under the deal with T-Mobile, the two companies will work together to enable advertisers to deliver targeted ads to consumers who will be able to then interact and respond directly.
While Yahoo just doesn’t stack up to the likes of Google in online advertising sales, Yahoo seem to be getting a head-start in the mobile arena. Google so far hasn’t explored mobile advertising, although it has been discussed.
